Sharon Kay Penman, A King’s Ransom

The Lionheart in winter.

He spoke no English, sired no legitimate
heir, and spent only six months of his 10-year reign on English soil,
just long enough to levy taxes to pay for his military adventures in
France and the Holy Land. Some historians even argue (almost certainly
mistakenly) that he was gay.

So
why is Richard Coeur de Lion (the Lionheart) still heralded as one of
the greatest monarchs ever to rule England? Sharon Kay Penman started to
answer that question in her previous novel, Lionheart, which chronicled Richard’s military prowess during the Third Crusade. Now, in the sequel, A King’s Ransom
(Putnam, 704 pages, $35), Penman turns her spotlight on Richard’s
political acumen as he struggles to return home in time to thwart his
onetime ally (and some say lover), King Philip II of France, who is
scheming with Richard’s younger brother, Prince John, to steal his
kingdom.

Like
most historians, Penman says she can find no evidence Richard preferred
the company of men in his royal bedchamber, although a sexual encounter
with Philip is a major plot point in The Lion in Winter, which
she describes in the author’s note as “one of my favorites.” That movie,
co-starring Anthony Hopkins as a young Lionheart, continues to color
the public’s image of Richard, although the notion he was gay may stem
from a misunderstanding of a common medieval custom. Royals of the same
sex frequently shared a bed for the night after forming an alliance (as
Richard did with Philip against Richard’s father, Henry II, in 1187),
but only, Penman writes, to demonstrate their solidarity.

In any case, there’s no love lost between Philip and Richard by the time A King’s Ransom
opens in 1192. Richard embarks for England after concluding the Third
Crusade by signing a peace treaty with his Muslim nemesis, Saladin, that
guarantees the safety of Christians visiting Jerusalem. Philip,
meanwhile, has already left the Holy Land for France to threaten
Richard’s Angevin empire.

As with Penman’s four previous novels on the Plantagenet dynasty, A King’s Ransom
is not historical romance but historical fiction of the first order, a
narrative synthesis of the royal marriages and petty rivalries, the
personal slights and gestures of loyalty, the grand deeds and simple
twists of fate that shape events. There is the odd, stray anachronism,
as when Duke Leopold of Austria and Richardquote
Scripture at each other, presumably in Latin, but Penman translates the
verses into the familiar English of the King James Bible, which
wouldn’t be published for another four centuries. Such flaws are perhaps
inevitable in a project of this scope. Instead of history that reads
like a novel, Penman achieves something greater: a novel that reads like
history.